ABSTRACT
The work of the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets is often described as “whimsical” or “quirky” – two words that would seem at odds with a revolutionary, or insurgent, or even just plain “critical” agenda. Among other projects, the Bureau formulated a perfume based upon the smells of San Francisco (Urban Essence, Figure 16.1 – which remained available to the general public for several years, until its maker actually smelled someone wearing it), and proposed to provide the San Francisco Planning Department with the only definitive, quantitative accounting of urban quality of life to be achieved by polling every single one of its citizen (The Deeply Subjective Survey of Urban Goodness – ongoing, and, like many urban planning initiatives, of potentially infinite duration).
